Mladic Rejects 'Obnoxious Charges,' Refuses To Enter Plea

Ratko Mladic, during his appearance at the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, earlier today (June 3, 2011).

Serge Ligtenberg
/ Getty Images

"Former Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic told a United Nations war crimes court Friday he is 'a gravely ill man' and refused to enter pleas to 'obnoxious charges' alleging he orchestrated the worst atrocities of a war that claimed 100,000 lives," The Associated Press reports from The Hague.

The BBC adds that Mladic "told the court he had been 'defending my people and my country.' "

"The experience of being in court has very quickly brought the old General Mladic to the fore: arrogant, defiant, insisting as he has just done that he is in court to defend his people and his country and not himself, which has brought a rebuke from the judge that he is charged as an 'individual.' "